How should the healthcare needs of a society be met? Conspicuously absent from international media coverage and under fire from conservative critics at home, Venezuela is developing a public healthcare system distinct from both U.S. market-driven and European welfare-state models. Perhaps nothing makes this system more unique than the kind of doctors being trained to run it.
The first remarkable thing to note about Venezuela’s comprehensive community medicine program is how little is known about it outside of Venezuela. The attempt to train tens of thousands of aspiring doctors in Cuban-style preventative community medicine, the majority of these new physicians from lower-income backgrounds, has merited next to no attention from the international mass media. Compared to issues of crime, inflation and sporadic shortages in the economy, for these outlets the effort to create an “army of white jackets” to make the vision of a free, universal healthcare service with clinics in every neighbourhood a reality is seemingly not of importance for understanding Venezuela today.
I pulled a card today. (It was the Knight of Cups, in case you're interested, this same card was pulled on 2/2. There is a reading for that day.) I couldn't connect to get anything written for it. I was guided to write this instead.
This is my "reiki story." It changes my life each and every day, always in an unexpected way.
My Reiki journey started while we were searching for honeymoon spots. As soon as we came across the page for Tree Spirit, my (then soon to be) husband and I knew that was the one. Advertised as a “’old island’ style beach cottage”, it boasted no TV, no phone, no clocks. You came there to be there. Perfect! Not to mention it was treated energetically with Reiki, crystals and other ineffable resources. At the time, I had no idea what any of that meant, which is kind of funny to think about now. I did a quick internet search about Reiki, but I only came back with a very, very basic concept of what Reiki is.
This morning in the call room, I was chatting away with the housekeeping lady in Spanish. There were a lot of babies born last night, and she wanted to know how many were girls and were boys. We were talking like old friends, when she stopped. After thinking carefully, she asked me in a whisper, 'Are you a NURSE or something?"
I smiled. Here she was changing the 'Doctor's Sleep Room' sheets and she had no clue about me! No...I am a doctor.... and I looked her in the eye and kept smiling.
"Wow! All that work, and everything!" she exclaimed.
I laughed inwardly. Many female physicians are mistaken for nurses. I have experienced this all the way through my career. I used to call my mother and complain about it to her. Want to know what she said? She said, 'People think that nurses are pretty and kind. Think of it as a complement!"
I haven't had a problem with it since.
Today, I was watching 'cooking class' at my kid's school. I was in scrubs, because I had been up all night doing epidurals and anesthesia for cesarean sections. Sasha came up to me and asked, 'Are you a hospital lady?'
I said, yes, indeed, I was.
Another girl asked, 'Are you a veterinarian? I thought you worked at my vet's office? (pointing to the scrubs)'
I laughed, and shared that I had wanted to be a veterinarian, but I am terribly allergic to cats, so I take care of people instead.
"Do you help people?"
Then my son piped up, "Help people? She takes care of people who are so sick they are half dead! And last night? She took care of somebody who was having a baby who was not much older than us! Can you imagine that?"
